Passion Pit’s Future Concerts to Include Interactive Visuals
Passion Pit made fans shed tears like diamonds after rescheduling several tour stops this summer, but the indie darlings from Cambridge, Massachusetts, are making it up to them by putting together an interactive concert experience enhanced with augmented reality.
“There will be several trigger points all over the stage and when you aim your phone camera at them, the app will detect them and display the visuals on the screen,” Passion Pit drummer Nate Donmoyer told Rolling Stone before the band took the stage at Outside Lands in San Francisco.
The augmented reality experience will be similar to acrossair’s subway map apps but, according to guitarist Ian Hultquist, it will be the first app to be custom-built for live shows. The upcoming tour will also give fans the opportunity to take home a piece of Passion Pit; every Instagram photo taken at a concert that mentions the band’s official username (@Passion_Pit) will be printed instantly and given out for free at the end of the show.
Previously, the band partnered with the Creators Project and director David Wilson to create the music video for “Take a Walk,” the first single off their sophomore album, Gossamer. Wanting to stray away from making a commercial video, Wilson employed helicam technology developed by SnapRoll Media to create a “vertigo-inducing” short film shot from the perspective of a gravity-defying bouncing ball.
In July, Passion Pit released an iPad app to accompany the release of Gossamer. Scott Nibble, known for bringing Bjork’s Bibliophilia app to life, developed the app, which lets fans remix tracks off Passion Pit’s new album and create video animation via touchscreen.
Donmoyer and Hultquist both agree that these side projects are more for promotional use rather than to generate revenue for the band, although they are both fond of toying with new technology.
“We love this stuff. We’re always playing with our phones,” Hultquist said.
“We are in our twenties. It’s not like we’re luddites, you know?” Donmoyer added.